Why small college ball is better than major college football, and Hal Mumme as Davy Crockett

Kevin Van Valkenburg wrote a great profile of Hal Mumme for ESPN the Magazine this week, which you can read here. Van Valkenburg does a great job of chronicling Mumme’s zig-zag path through the coaching ranks and his influence on the game. When you read it (which I am ordering each of you to do) it almost becomes eerie how many wide-spread ideas started with him and how many successful coaches he influenced.

Along the way, the profile gives us some great quotes about the way Mumme sees the world:

“How many football coaches have you heard say, ‘This is war! This is hard work!’ Guess what. Football isn’t work. I’ve never worked a day in my life. This isn’t rocket science! This isn’t cancer! It’s fun! And when I die, I want that on my tombstone: ‘Hal Mumme: His players had fun.'”

And also makes the argument for small college football over the major college counterpart:

“The coaches who think Belhaven is beneath them? They’re idiots,” Mumme said. “I just feel sorry for them because this is like the best deal in the world. Small colleges are a lot better than big-time football. The kids are getting educated, which you can’t say at a lot of places, and they’re having fun. How do you beat that?”

“There’s been a lot of innovation out of those levels because there is more freedom. Even now when I study schools, I probably study more small schools. I already know what big schools are doing. The higher you go, the more homogenized it gets. The lower you go, you’ll see some wild stuff,” added Mike Leach.

National columnist - Zach joined the staff in 2012...and has been attempting to improve Doug and Scott's writing ability ever since (to little avail). Outside of football season, you can find him watching the San Antonio Spurs reading Game of Thrones fan theories.